#but uh yeah this feels important

[skitskatdacat63]

2023 Las Vegas Grand Prix - Fernando Alonso

[skinks]

The English - 1.02

[lunarharp]

into the deep end - 29k T orufrey fic.

the sweet oblivion of the victim, the poisoned freedom of the other.

for one moment - it had felt like two parts returned - the needed reunion of two disparate halves. no more secrets, no more pain.

the moment you get to give back what you never wanted to take. that moment, under the night-blooming flowers, when they had both let out the same single broken sigh of relief.

but they were never whole to begin with, were they?

qifrey swore he wouldn't say 'sorry' to this man any more if he could help it - sorry is cheap now. he didn't want to be in a position ever again where you only have 'sorry' left. so he just looks down into the threads of his blanket, strains his eye until it hurts, feeling his insides - his throat, heart and head - burn with pain. he expects more, but olly says nothing.

olly says nothing.

[artheresy]

Part One (Astral Express

Random post ideas I got, but I'm just listing my opinions on aspects of the HSR designs, including things I may dislike or would at least change about certain playable HSR design, because I am currently planning some of my own designs/redesigns to use for future art

Disclaimer!! I am not a professional character designer, I am not saying any of my ideas for them are objectively better, and I am not bashing any of these designs. I actually like most if not literally all of the playable designs so far! This is just my lil opinions of how I would change them

The List part 1:

Stelle: I actually like the turquoise band around her thigh, I just don't like how they didn't take the opportunity to sprinkle in some more of that color into her design. She had a lot of little details in her outfit, especially the back of her coat, so there's a lot of places where a few splashes of turquoise could be added whether in those little details or in some of her other adornments just so that the band stands out less . I think I would change more than just that ofc, but that's one of the things about her that stood out the most to me. Also honestly? Maybe I would scale down the sheer amount of detail she has on her back (which as someone who has tried to draw her from the back view o h my g o d), and add some more detail on her sides like her arms and her legs maybe? I dunno, I think her design is really really nice, but there are places the amount of details could be more evenly spread to.

March 7th: While I don't mind her design that is especially center around her top half, March definitely has a clutter design particularly around her waist when you look at her full body in detail. Clutter that manages to mix in some odd color choices too/ I'd probably clean it up, or better place the little bits of clutter to feel like it matches more and change up the colors in order to at least go with the rest of her outfit. Like the gold makes sense, not only with her details of golden buttons throughout her design but also the golden ticket she holds showing she is passenger of the Astral Express, but why the black fabric? How is it supposed to work in terms of construction with the rest of her outfit, I'd keep her black to only the little accented bands on her thigh and neck rather than anything big on her waist. Why is the thing holding her camera orange, why does she have this random bright green button, why does she have seemingly two different belts?? I think March would have a better sense of what goes together than that. Overall, still an adorable design.

Dan Heng: He is very nicely designed, and I think a lot of his personality comes through in it, way better than any alternative for him. I feel like I can get a better sense of his nature and overall how he feels and who he is in it. The one unfortunate aspect of his design for me though is that it feels a bit... bland? for a lack of better word. Not that he's devoid of details or anything, very nice to see him not having a particularly busy design, but a lot of those meaningful details tend to be pushed to his back or his arms. I would probably bring a few more of the details that can be to the front or maybe add more? It just feels as though there is something lacking in the design, maybe more on a coloration front than construction. Speaking of coloration, I'd likely change the way the details around his waist are colored, all the same hue and yet different shades also getting an ombre? It's a little messy, but not a big issue to be honest. That's just my view of it though, still love his design for how much it really lets his character shine through unlike Another One which I will eventually get into and explain my thoughts on in the Luofu post.

Himeko: Listen, she's beautiful, she's gorgeous. I absolutely adore her and her color palette especially, it's such a nice blend of elements with the gold all mixed in. However, her silhouette is awful like it's so messy, and I really dislike how weighed down she feels. I wish she looked just a bit different, wish her clothes looked a bit lighter. She's a Nameless, she's their navigator, she's the one who repaired the Astral Express herself!! I wish she had more details to reflect all of that, and I already have ideas for how it could be done that would end up alleviating some of the weight placed on her with all of those heavy, layered fabrics. Additionally, I think there's a better way to highlight those elements while still making her look elegant, gorgeous, and ornate. Yeah, I love Himeko, I do like her currently design a lot, but I think more could be done to show off more sides of her. She's the one I probably have the clearest image for so far. Like I can imagine her in a nice set of slacks, a deep brown tone that goes well with her coat, and either on the sides or the front of the bottom, they have slits revealing these ruffles showing through similar to the ruffles of her coat sleeves. They have golden adornments along them, very sleek and fitting her figure well to keep with a very elegant appearance. Perhaps she has suspenders as well, maybe only one side to fit with their habit of asymmetrical designs. All with a nice white blouse or even some kind of button up, buttons popped open and collar folded in a more fashionable style. Even more hammering on the asymmetry, maybe for side where she actually wears her coat, the sleeve is much shorter to not interfere with the jacket's ruffles. I don't know, that's just a little idea of changing up the construction of her outfit that I had, but I'll see how it looks on paper when I draw it.

Welt: Okay listen, I need to look up more about his lore before I can truly say anything about him. Looking at his design, and with what I do know about him, I do adore it. His color palette here with the grey tones making up the majority of it for his upper body with the accents of an almost like cool toned brown and the darker shades of grey and black coming in. It's so nicely balanced, I don't feel like he had too many elements or too many overlapping fabrics that complicate the shape. It's a competent design, and while I think someone with more knowledge on him could find more places to add details, with what I know about him, I do really like the way he looks. If I were to change one thing... I would give him more wrinkles. I know why his physical appearance doesn't match what his true age is, but I still think he deserves a few more wrinkles PLEASE that's the only way I can think to truly elevate him at the moment, give him a few more wrinkles he'd look so good with them. Whenever I see art of people giving him more wrinkles I ascend... Okay well, I can think of something I would do color wise, but I'm still on the fence about it.

I think I'll leave things there for now. I don't have as much to say on these designs in particular. I think generally they're pretty solid, and even with the ones I can think of more changes for like Himeko's, I still greatly adore a lot of elements from it. The Astral Express' base designs definitely aren't the ones I have a lot of gripes with or things to say aside from suggestions for Himeko, we'll get to those eventually (those ones in particular are Serval and DH IL, both for primarily character reasons rather than aesthetic reasons like some other opinions I have.) But yeah, the next post will be for the Stellaron Hunters since I couldn't fit them into this so look out for that!

[hellaverse-critical-confessions]

(about aroace alastor)

... aroace people can date people????? where did you people find the impression that we can't or that we don't feel romantic or sexual love /lh. information about aroace people is so limited and far / few in between that if viv were to actually canonize alastor's sexuality, he would be amazing representation alongside being shipped or canonically being in a relationship. there is so little aroace representation like that and i crave to see more!!!!

to explain further, the general definiton for aromantic and/or asexual is a "orientation defined by a lack of or limited sexual/romantic attraction". some aro/aces feel absolutely no attraction in these aspects, some feel it sometimes or only towards certain types of people, and some people have fluid/ever changing feelings.

for example, aegosexual, which describes someone who feels disconnected from the subject of arousal, generally have little to no sexual attraction, but still consume sexual content, engage in sexual fantasies, or even masturbate! another example is lithromantic, which describes someone who feels romantic attraction but doesn't want it reciprocated or loses attraction when it's reciprocated, they may enjoy romantic relationships in theory but most likely will feel no romantic attraction or enjoyment in a romantic relationship.

i beg you guys, please learn about each of the spectrums before engaging in discourse about it. there are so many beautiful and cool labels people use to describe themselves, and if someone whose on either spectrum could see themselves in alastor and ship him even so, that's another win. please

- an aroace

Oh, definitely! Thank you for the informative ask.

[insidejupiter]

jingliu is a perfect example of "if this female character was male, shed be universally loved instead of heavily criticized"

[eeunwoo]

.

[bumblingbabooshka]

Worst Guy Ever - Also, Unfortunately, Very Homosexual Convo. (subtextually)

[hecksupremechips]

The best feeling in the world is when there’s a piece of media you know you love and you’ve hyped it up as your favorite thing for so long but you haven’t revisited it in a while so you start to worry if it’s really as good as you make it out to be and so you go back and revisit it and it’s like. Oh this is even better than I remembered this shit rules

[whereisthedamndaddymanual]

Look I don't know what the fuck antarctica is.

It's like stuff your ass ain't surviving past though

[ashmcgivern]

Disbelief, when I first heard the news It left me angry and confused Knocked the wind out of my soul When we lost what made us whole And now there's a heat behind my eyes And I can't stop asking "Why?", Why?", Why?" - Tragedy Is Not the End | Joel Ansett

[kyouka-supremacy]

Maybe reading 55 Minutes wasn't completely a waste of time

[leatherbookmark]

♪ bad, bad news ♪

[todayisafridaynight]

if i doodle during unlucky monkey stream later would we be mad at me

[missmitchieg]

But yeah, I love that Julie says things like "no, no, that's the last thing that they wanted" and "they wouldn't stand me up again, they must have run out of time" with such certainty, like she just knows the guys learned their lesson the first time around so in her mind, it only makes sense that the boys that the guys are gone.

[lightningfilledsaber]

i read your tags on that one post and it's insane how close our experiences were. im certain it was a different trans woman but i had the EXACT same experience with a man-hating transphobic autistic sex pest trans woman who was afraid of being treated like a predator but was fine treating other people the same way. you're not the only one who's suffered this way and im glad you were able to get out of there too

While I do appreciate the support from this ask (and this is not meant with any aggressive/mean/etc tone toward you at all!) I do want to be very, very, clear; I would not describe my ex friend as a sex pest at all. Not even necessarily "man-hating," either, though she definitely had a gender essentialism issue she needed to deal with. I'm not comfortable going into detail but not only did I not have a single sexual experience with her, there are only two incidences I was made to feel sexually uncomfortable around/by her specifically, it was at worst a miscommunication issue. But really it was just sometimes you do or say something that accidentally makes someone uncomfortable but doesn't necessarily cause harm. That's how I feel about those instances, though in the context of all their other behavior, was still by virtue uncomfortable and something I would've liked to hold them accountable for (though AGAIN, not because I feel they were being sexually predatory, this is just a very nuanced situation)

The situation and relationship I had with both of them was very, very nuanced. I'm still struggling over how to identify certain things and processing the sheer amount of shit I was put through; but at the end of the day, most of the harm was perpetuated by her partner, my ex best friend. She was absolutely not innocent, and did blatantly cross and ignore my boundaries and made me uncomfortable frequently, but I can confidently say it wasn't sexual. Neither she or her partner are sex pests or sexual predators or anything like that.

Now that that's out of the way! Genuinely thank you for this ask. I'm deeply sorry you had a similar experience and it's very reassuring to hear I'm not alone lol. It's not something I always feel comfortable talking about, as I don't want to invite terf rhetoric painting trans women as inherent predators, but also there's been this idea in certain queer circles recently to "combat" that rhetoric (which only ends up spewing the same man-bad, woman-good gender essentialism but in a trans "INCLUSIVE" way) by saying that somehow trans women are incapable of doing wrong which is just as damaging (and isolating to any kind of victim of harmful behavior). In reality, your identity, your background, etc etc does not exempt you from nor does it make you more susceptible to harming others. You can cause harm no matter who you are, and that's why I constantly stress the fact that the issue I have with my ex friends is not just their treatment of me; but the fact that neither of them truly held themselves accountable or WORKED on their behavior at any point and in fact enabled each other's behavior toward me. I have never pretended to be a perfect friend but I know I tried my damndest every single day to communicate clearly and effectively what I would do better (not JUST when an issue arose, but ACTIVELY worked on myself even while things were "good") and what I needed and expected of them. I was instead met with blatant disregard for my comfort, my time, and again my boundaries. They did not give a shit about me, just what I could do for them. And it's isolating as hell when the people who hurt you are also trans themselves. Especially when they fear judgement and persecution just for being trans (or their disorders!), while in the same breath doing exactly that to you. I'm glad you were able to get out of your situation as well, thank you again for this ask.